Boarding House
by Checkerboards
Summary: The sequel to 'The Big House'. The Riddler and Jackie have escaped and are finally free to live life any way they like. But of course, no sane person really likes being a henchgirl...
1. In the Pink

They say that you can never go home again, which on the surface is patently absurd. Of course you can go home again. Home is always there, steadfast and unchanging. That's the whole point of a home! What the writer actually _meant_ , though, is that once you leave home for the first time – for longer than an afternoon, anyway – you grow. You change. You may be able to return to the same building, but it will never quite have the same air of protection and warmth and, well, _homeyness_ as it once did. Once it's gone, it's gone forever, and no amount of wishing or pretending will bring it back.

Arkham Asylum, as halfhearted a home as ever there was, was missing a few inhabitants tonight. The Riddler, with some minor assistance, had located Jackie within the long, cold corridors of the asylum and offered her her freedom. Jackie, in the heat of the moment, had sprung through the open window and followed Eddie into the chilly spring night. They'd made their way through the city, trotting quietly through unlit streets and abandoned alleys until they arrived at the nearest lair – the pink-drenched apartment that they'd lived in for most of last November. Jackie, shivering with the excitement of freedom (and the chill of cold sweat mixed with fresh, damp air), had stayed right behind Eddie, trailing him along paths that she was pretty sure were safe. It had probably only taken a few hours to cross the city, but to Jackie, it felt like this night had lasted for years.

Most people leave a key under the mat in case they lock themselves out. The Riddler usually had higher standards for his entryways. At the very minimum, each door would be fitted with a puzzle lock, and then ideally, rigged with a nasty surprise built in to scare off wandering salesmen and nosy ne'er-do-wells. Then again, his lairs were not usually smack-dab in the middle of a street full of civilian apartments packed with civilians who would probably eagerly call the police at the merest hint of a supervillain lurking in their midst.

This door, puzzle-lock free, was guarded by a mere triple deadlock. The key, contrary to tradition, was buried deep in the twisty twigs of a pink-flowered wreath that clung to the door like a marauding patch of mold. With a few moments' work, the door to the lair creaked open. Eddie and Jackie hurried inside and shut the door with a sigh of relief. After a brief check to make sure that the blackout curtains were still firmly closed over the windows, Eddie flicked on the lights.

Time is not kind to prisoners, but it's also not a friend to unlived-in homes. No one had been inside the pink apartment since Thanksgiving. It looked much the same as they'd left it, except now the pink was muted under a layer of thick gray dust.

Three deadbolts snapped into place behind Jackie. Eddie dusted off his hands and grinned happily at her around his swollen lip. "I'm going to go get changed, and then we can find thome food." Humming a happy tune to himself, he disappeared into the bedroom that held all of his clothes.

Jackie was just as eager to get anything stamped with ARKHAM off of herself as Eddie was. She went to her own closet and sorted through her clothes, skinning out of the itchy gray jumpsuit with a sigh of happiness. Her own underwear – underwear that hadn't been worn by a selection of mentally unstable Arkhamites. Bliss. A soft purple t-shirt with sleeves big enough to fit over the cast on her arm, a pair of jeans, and her warm, thick sweater - _there_. Feeling much more comfortable, she padded in her fuzzy-socked feet out to the kitchen.

Eddie was already there, pawing through the cupboards in search of food that hadn't expired. Since none of his question-marked clothes were there, he'd opted for one of the countless red t-shirts and pairs of blue jeans that Jackie had bought for him last year.

Jackie bit her lip as she watched him. The jeans, which had been a little small on him before, were hanging loosely on his hips. His arms, which had never been that bulky, were alarmingly thin. And his face - in the darkness of the asylum and the back alleys of Gotham, she hadn't been able to see the large black bruise splashed cruelly across his jaw. "What happened to you?" she whispered.

He shrugged and tossed a box of long-expired donuts at the trash can. "Arkham," he said, as if that was some kind of explanation.

Horrible, burning guilt surged up inside Jackie. If she'd been a proper henchgirl, she would have protected him from Batman. Instead, she'd run off by herself, abandoning him to Batman's limited amounts of mercy, and that had landed him back in Arkham. He was hurt because of _her_. "Sit down," she said, pointing to a chair. "I'll get you some food."

He gratefully slid into one of the pink-cushioned kitchen chairs, settling his feet on the seat of another chair and lounging comfortably as Jackie bustled around. She opened the fridge and immediately slammed it shut, coughing at the reek of moldy, spoiled food.

Maybe there was something edible in the freezer. She cracked it open. When no horrific odors threatened to gas her, she opened it a little wider.

A stack of individually-wrapped pieces of lasagna towered over a Tupperware container of chicken paprikash. Her mom always did make too much food. She pulled two pieces of the lasagna out and plopped them onto small plates, stuffing them both into the microwave at the same time.

Slowly, deliciously, the scent of sausage and tomato sauce began to fill the air of the tiny kitchen. Jackie stood, her back to the Riddler, watching the food rotate in the microwave. Her unicorn necklace, tucked under her sweater, was still chilly from their cross-city run. She toyed with it absently as she stared at the spinning lasagna.

She was out. She was out and she was free, and according to Harley Quinn, she might be able to stay that way if she didn't do anything else that made officials suspect her sanity – like, say, helping Eddie in any way, or going to the Iceberg, or doing anything that she'd gotten accustomed to doing in the handful of months since her apartment had burned down.

If she didn't misbehave – if she stayed on the right side of the law – she could have a real life again, with a real home and a real future, solid and stable, prearranged and predictable. But if she did give it up – if she packed her bags and left Gotham and all its super-residents behind – where would she go? What would she do?

The microwave beeped. She snatched the plates out and laid them on the table, eager for the distraction.

The next few minutes were filled with the reverent, radiant silence of people tasting real food for the first time in weeks. Eventually, after the ecstasy of homemade leftovers had died down a bit, Eddie caught Jackie's eye and gave her a lopsided smile. "Tho tell me," Eddie said, winding a strand of cheese around his fork. "What'th the damage?"

"Hmm?" Jackie, mouth full of pasta, gave him a startled look.

"Your thententhe," he lisped. "How many yearth?"

"Oh." She chased a little chunk of ricotta cheese around her plate with her fork. She might as well tell him now. Waiting wasn't going to change the truth, and it wasn't like you could keep anything from the Riddler if he really wanted to find out. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" he repeated, one eyebrow raised.

"They dropped the charges. They forgot to file some papers, I guess." She poked a piece of spicy sausage carefully back into her lasagna, avoiding his eyes.

He took another bite, chewing it carefully as he avoided irritating his injuries. "Hmm. Tho...I wath thinking for our next heitht, we could -"

"Next heist?" she interrupted. Her fork dropped onto her plate with a ceramic clatter.

"Of courthe," he said, taken aback. "What did you think we were doing after we broke out?"

"I thought...well...maybe there shouldn't _be_ a next heist. Not for me, anyway," she added hurriedly as a closed look of denial shuttered over Eddie's face. "I mean, look what happened! You're all beat up, you're half-starved, I've got a broken arm, well, it's almost healed, but still...I'm not a very good henchgirl," she mumbled. The lasagna felt like a cold cannonball in her stomach. "They're not pressing charges. Maybe I should just…quit."

His fork hit the table with a quiet, deliberate _thud_. "You're leaving," he said flatly. She looked up to see him staring at her – not with an angry glare, or a sad gaze, but with the kind of dull resignation that said that he must have been expecting this.

"No. Yes. I don't know," she said, burying her hands in her hair and resting her elbows on the table. This was impossible. She drew in a shuddering breath, trying not to cry. "Do you even want me to stay?"

" _Yeth_."

She raised her head and saw the determined look in his eyes. "Really? I thought that...I mean, you did break me out, but...it's my fault we were in Arkham anyway." She dropped her head into her hands again, drowning in a sea of misery.

Two hands took her by the shoulders and turned her to the side. "Lithen to me," Eddie said, crouching in front of her. "Are you lithening?"

Jackie sniffled and nodded Yes.

"Our capture wath not your fault. No," he said, overriding her immediate protest, "it wath _not_. It wath _Batman'th_ fault. _He'th_ the one that put uth in Arkham, not you. _Robin_ ith the one that broke your arm, not you." He paused. "How _did_ he break your arm, anyway?"

"He threw me into a table," Jackie mumbled.

Eddie sighed. "You thee? He broke your arm for no reathon."

"Well, it wasn't exactly for no reason. I...kind of tried to break his skull with a hair straightener," she admitted, hunching sheepishly backward.

"And you thay you're not a good henchgirl," Eddie chuckled.

"I'm _not_!"

"You are. I've theen grown men wet themthelveth the firtht time they thaw Batman in action. Do you remember what you did the firtht time you thaw him and hith brat? You marched right up there and tried to thtop them. _That'th_ all it taketh to be a good henchgirl." He grinned at her, that saucy, clever grin that always made her feel like a silly schoolgirl with a crush. "Anyway, I love you. Ithn't that enough?"

"I love you too," she smiled, squeezing his hand where it rested on her shoulder. "But...I just don't know what I should do."

The smile disappeared from his face. He gripped her shoulders tightly for a moment, then stood up and padded back to his seat. "You don't have to dethide tonight. It'th late - well, it'th early," he corrected, noticing the clock ticking gently past five AM. "It'th been a long night. We can talk about it later."

"Okay," Jackie said as they returned to their meal. There were decisions to make and choices to choose. But for right now, _later_ meant the chance to spend one more night with Eddie, consequence-free, and right now that was all that she could hope for.

* * *

The next few days passed in a blur of careful mediocrity. Eddie, who disliked few things more than having to be seen with a face full of injuries, stayed resolutely indoors, making great use of the refrigerator's automatic ice dispenser.

Things had been strained, to say the least. He didn't often break someone out of Arkham only to have them immediately voice their desire to leave him. Well, okay, that happened all the time, but that was with other rogues.

He'd expected a lot of things when they'd gotten back here. He'd expected her to jump back into training, or call up some of her henchgirl friends, or at the very least that she'd express some kind of interest in what they'd be doing next. Instead, she was spending a fair bit of her time in the spare bedroom, the one that they'd designated as 'hers' for her parents, only coming out for meals, and even then barely saying a word.

What was the matter with her, anyway? Okay, so the court had canceled all of her charges. So what? She'd left Arkham with him anyway. She had to know that breaking out of Arkham, and breaking out with _him_ , would send everyone from the cops to the Bats after her. She was already committed, as it were. Why was she suddenly all nervous about going forward?

He glanced out of the kitchen. She sat, folded uncomfortably into an armchair, scraping at her plaster cast with a steak knife.

At least this was one thing he knew how to fix. He set his half-melted ice pack down on the counter and stuck his head into the living room. "Come here."

"Why?"

"Just come in here."

She appeared a moment later, steak knife still wedged in a tiny scrape mark in the cast. He popped it free and set it aside, guiding her arm into the sink. Nozzle in hand, he turned the sprayer on, soaking the cast from top to bottom. When it was softened, he pulled a pair of kitchen shears out of the knife block and started slicing through the leathery remains of the cast. Once he'd carved a suitably large hole in the elbow, the rest of her arm slid out like a peeled shrimp.

"There," he said, tossing the plaster-flecked shears into the sink.

"You're good at that," she said, examining her thin, pale arm.

"I've had a lot of practice. Wiggle your fingers?" She did, also gingerly flexing her elbow. "Good as new."

"Thanks," she murmured, watching her arm freely moving around.

"You're welcome." Casually, he shifted so that he was between Jackie and the doorway. "We need to talk."

"About what?"

"About you hiding in that room. Jackie, what's wrong?" he asked, stepping into her path as she tried to dart around him. "You can talk to me."

"It's…I…"

Rapid-fire fists hammered on the door. "Hello in there! You guys home?" Before Eddie could answer, the door handle began to melt under a stream of neon green acid.

Eddie hurried to the door and wrenched the deadbolts open, jumping aside as the door swung open to reveal Harley Quinn, pigtailed and perky, in the middle of breaking in with the help of an acid-spitting flower. "Hey, Riddles," she greeted, casually cheerful, as if she hadn't just ruined his cover, his carpet, and his door.

"What do you want?" he snapped.

"What is _with_ everyone today? Mr. J's in a mood, Red kicked me out – well, her plants did," she said, rubbing a tattered scratch on the shoulder of her tight red shirt. "An' I've got this great plan! Hiya, Q," she waved over Eddie's shoulder. Eddie glanced back to see Jackie stopped dead in her flight trajectory toward the spare room. She waved hi weakly back with her newly uncasted arm. "Hey, yer arm's better! 'Bout time." Harley bustled inside, tucking the acid flower back into her smiley-face purse.

"Come in," Eddie invited crossly.

"Thanks, Riddles. So anyway, I've got this great plan to get into the art museum, but here's the thing – it needs at least two other people, and since Mr. J and Red aren't interested, I thought maybe you two would want in."

"Oh," Eddie said, trying to think of a polite way to say that of all the rogues in the city, he'd rather team up with just about anyone rather than her. "Ah…"

"Q? How about it?" Harley beamed enticingly, eyebrows quirked above her bright blue eyes. "We're out of Arkham – thanks for leaving the window unlocked, by the way," she added happily. "Time to have some fun!"

"I can't," Jackie blurted.

"Why not? You got something else on your schedule?"

"Well, kind of. I'm, uh, going to, um…Vermont. Tomorrow."

"Awww. You sure?"

"Yeah…"

Harley sighed disconsolately. "Guess it'll hafta wait 'til Mr. J's in a better mood. I could do it with the boys, I guess, but the last time I pulled a job with them they tripped the alarm by accident and the Bat took 'em all out before we even got in the vault." She rolled her eyes at the memory and yanked open the acid-eaten door. "Have fun in Vermont, Q!"

Perky footsteps clattered down the hall. When they'd faded into silence, Eddie leaned up against the door, or at least a part of it which was only slightly melted. "Vermont?"

"Well, I didn't want to…I mean…" She rubbed her wrist.

Eddie sighed. She didn't want to go on a heist with Harley, not because doing anything with Harley meant a much greater chance of ending the evening in a straitjacket, but because she didn't want to go on a heist with anyone. Including him.

"And if she comes back?" he inquired softly.

"I could…I could hide in the bedroom, I guess," she mumbled.

"Or you could go to Vermont."

"What?" She looked up at him, baffled – and while he loved seeing that expression on nearly anyone else's face, it wasn't nearly as enjoyable on Jackie's.

"What if Harley decides to come and see you? She does things like that, you know. I assume that you chose Vermont because that's where your parents live. Do you want them to have to deal with her by themselves?"

Jackie's fingers twisted the hem of her shirt, rolling it back and forth across her knuckles. "You want me to leave?" she asked in a tiny voice.

In an instant, he was across the room, folding her into the hug he'd wanted to give her for days. She stiffened, then relaxed against him, resting her head on his shoulder. "I want you to stay. But you're clearly not happy here. Go visit your parents. Take some time off. I'll be here whenever you decide to come back."

"You're sure?" She pulled back, searching his face for reassurance.

"Positive," he smiled, kissing her forehead. He was positive, all right – positive that a few days back in insipid suburbia would drive her back to Gotham in a heartbeat. She'd go, she'd be bored, and she'd come home – end of problem. And once she came to her senses and came back, they could get back to life as usual – or as unusually usual as it ever got in Gotham, anyway.

( _to be continued_ )


	2. Gray Skies

There is a wonderful freedom in being alone. You can do as you like with no fear of judgement and no need to accommodate anyone else's wants or desires. You can do what you want to do, when you want to do it, however you want to do it, and no-one will get in your way. If you want to go to Taco Bell at three in the morning, fine! If you want to rock out to your favorite song in your underwear, go crazy! If you want to throw yourself headlong into a painstakingly careful campaign to bring your city of choice to ruins as you preside over its destruction…well, you _can_ , but traditionally that sort of plan doesn't end well. In fact, sometimes it's nice to have someone around to remind you that maybe what you're doing is a terrible idea that will only lead to horrific injuries (yours) and death (also yours).

The Riddler was alone and he was determined to be cheerful about it. He'd seen Jackie off at the bus station, smiling and waving. His favorite coffee in hand, he'd returned to the pink apartment, all set to have a relaxing morning of peace and quiet with the newspaper crossword.

But it was _too_ quiet. He wasn't used to total silence. There was always some noise around him. On a good day, they were good noises – the little sounds made by henchgirls going about their day, the metallic squeaks and clangs of a deathtrap coming together, the wail of a police siren behind him as he made off with something hideously expensive. On a bad day, there were different noises – the noise of his own bones breaking, the ear-shattering squeal of an IV alarm, the screams and general gibbering of the permanent inmates of Arkham. The muffled silence of the apartment pressed on his ears, making him twitch as imagined sounds skated across his eardrums. It was almost as if he could hear Jackie in the other room…

He turned his attention to the crossword, shaking his head sharply to get the image of Jackie out of his mind. _Stadium walkways_? Ramps, of course. _Follow with a camera_? Pan, naturally. _Cast wearer's problem_? Oh, that was easy. Jackie had gone on and on about how itchy it was –

No. Focus! _Hardhearted._ Stony. _Tallinn native_? Estonian. Perfect. _Queue before a Q_? Q. Query. Jackie.

What?!

He glared at the page. This was ridiculous. He couldn't even do a crossword without thinking of her!

Well, there were other ways to fill his time. There was still that half-built puzzle trap in his lair across town. He could work on that until Jackie came to her senses and came back. And if she was expecting to find him here, well, she could just do a little searching until she found him. That would teach her to leave him like he'd specifically ordered her to do!

* * *

Jackie, in the backseat of a taxi, took the world in as it whizzed by. Vermont in April wouldn't win any beauty awards. Dead-looking brown trees stood above equally dead-looking brown bushes and grass that was sullenly avoiding any efforts to spring back to life. Mud puddles lurked beside sidewalks, filled with debris from the chilly wind as it swept past. None of that mattered, though. It was home, where she'd grown up. There were no supervillains or superheroes here, just supermarkets and the local SuperSandwich.

The scenery grew more and more familiar. There was her neighborhood – her street – her old house, snuggled securely between its neighbors, fresh blue paint accented with shining white shutters. Home. The taxi driver helped her unload her single suitcase, which was astonishingly light given that it contained all of her worldly possessions, and disappeared back into his car.

So this was it. Home. The last time she'd seen her parents, they'd eaten Thanksgiving dinner in the Riddler's showplace lair, which was packed wall-to-wall with question-marked knickknacks and subtle deathtraps. And, for some reason that she couldn't drag out of them, they'd been _okay_ with it. They'd even gone so far as to approve of it! Her mom, knowing that Eddie was the Riddler, had yanked him out of bed and made him waffles. How on earth did that make any kind of sense? How was she supposed to go home and act like everything was normal after that?

Jackie might have lingered on the sidewalk in a fit of indecision, but the weather made the decision for her. A cold wind ruffled her hair and chilled the back of her neck as she hurried to the front door and rang the bell. After a moment, it swung open, revealing Violet drying her hands with a light beige hand towel. "Jackie? Jackie!" she yelped, dropping the towel and flinging slightly damp arms around her daughter.

"Hi, Mom," Jackie wheezed.

"Rick, Jackie's here!" Violet called. "Sweetie, how have you been? We haven't heard from you in ages. Is Eddie with you?" She pulled back, examining the outdoors in case Eddie had gotten lost in the driveway.

"No, Mom. It's…complicated."

"Oh." Was that disappointment on her mom's face? Was she that eager to have a famous – well, _infamous_ – supercriminal in her house? Something in her own face must have signaled her mom to drop the topic. "Well, come on in, sweetheart, before Noodles gets out." She held the door wide. Jackie edged past her, maneuvering the suitcase into the front hall while keeping an eye on the ground for the cat, who was just as eager to get out of the house as any rogue escaping Arkham. "Let me help you with that bag. RICK!" she bellowed again.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" The door to the basement stairs swung open. Rick climbed out, brushing sawdust from his shirt. "Hi, honey!" He caught Jackie in a rib-cracking hug.

"Hi Dad," Jackie wheezed.

"It's great to see you again! We thought you forgot you had parents," he said, winking at her before he let her go.

"Well, Arkham's got plenty of cells, but no cell phones," Jackie said, instantly regretting her terrible pun as her mother's eyes went wide.

"Arkham? Asylum?" Violet confirmed in a please-tell-me-you-aren't-serious tone.

"We knew Edward had been caught, but the newspapers didn't mention you," Rick explained. "We hoped you got away."

"No." Jackie grinned as the perfect distraction wandered in on his four furry feet. "Noodles! How've you been, jerkface?" She swooped down and scooped up the dark gray cat, cuddling him on his back like a pointy-eared baby. He lay still, tolerantly putting up with his overaffectionate owner until the moment that he could thrash his way to freedom.

"Are you staying long?" Violet asked, eyeing the suitcase.

"I, uh…don't know." Jackie turned her attention back to the cat, missing the significant look that Rick and Violet exchanged over her head.

"Oh. Well, I'll go fix up your room – I was cleaning out my closet, and there are some things on your bed. Let me go tidy up." Violet scurried off. The noise of frantic cleaning rustled down the hallway, accompanied by the thumping of boxes and the clack of clothes hangers.

"So, Edward didn't come with you?"

"No, Dad," Jackie said to the cat's stomach.

"Did you have a fight?" In the corner of her eye, she could see his fists beginning to tighten.

"No, Dad. Well, kind of. It's not…it's…it's a really long story, okay?" she said. "I wanted to come out here, and he thought it was a good idea. It's okay." It wasn't, but her father didn't need to know that.

His hands softened as he tucked them in his pockets. "Okay, sweetheart. As long as you're okay."

"I'm fine, Dad," Jackie said, immediately swearing as Noodles caught her on the arm with his back claws and springboarded to the ground. "Stupid cat. It's fine," she said, examining her arm. "My arm's just not back to normal yet from being broken."

"Who broke your arm?" Rick's hands began to bunch closed again.

"It doesn't matter. Not Eddie," she continued hastily. "Dad, I promise I'll tell you all about it later, okay? I just really need to sit down for a while."

"Okay, sweetie."

Jackie hurried up to her old room. A few hours' peace, that's what she needed. A few hours where she wouldn't have to worry about supervillains or shattering life choices or anything but laying still and maybe taking a nap. Of course, it was slightly difficult to take a nap when your bed was covered pillow to footboard with boxes and your mother was buzzing around the room like a bee without a hive.

Violet peered at her, eyes barely visible from behind her armload of stuff. "Mind giving me a hand?" she asked, swaying left to balance the stack of boxes in her grip before they tumbled to the ground.

"Sure." As Violet wove away, trying to catch the top of the pile with her chin, Jackie began to scoop boxes from the bed into her own arms. A shoebox of old pictures…a tiny plastic crate of her college desk accessories…a masking-taped box full of something, papers probably…

Jackie took a careful step forward, jerking back as she realized that the floor was far too squishy. " _Noodles_!" she squeaked, trying to simultaneously keep her balance, keep hold of the boxes, and keep from crushing the cat. Her mother yelped as Jackie ricocheted off of her. Boxes flew onto the ground in an avalanche of memories, scattering their contents in a last-second obstacle course as Noodles the cat sought refuge under the bed. From her seat on the rug, Jackie ruefully rubbed her newly-healed arm, aching from its contact with the floor. Violet gave her a sheepish smile, knees and elbows poking out around the rim of a destroyed cardboard box like a swimmer testing the world's worst makeshift inner tube.

"You okay?"

"We're fine, Dad," Jackie called. She began to scoop things back into their boxes. Did she even need to keep her college stuff anymore? Well, maybe the Bluebird of Happiness paperweight that her old roommate had given her…oh, and the stack of magnets and other tchotchkes emblazoned with the college name…she'd go through it later. She stuffed it back into the crate and stuck it back up on the bed.

The masking-taped box had completely exploded. Jackie, on her knees, reached to gather the pile of papers together. Old receipts, a few of her drawings from elementary school…a piece of fabric? She held the end in one hand, letting the yellowy-brown satin strip unroll until it hit the floor. It had been painstakingly spangled with blue-edged golden polka dots that twirled attractively around the eye holes.

Eye holes?

It was a _mask._

"Jackie, I – oh, give me that!" Violet swooped down on the mask, hastily folding it back up and hiding it behind her back. "Is Noodles okay?"

"Noodles is fine. What's going on?"

"Nothing," Violet said, not meeting her eyes.

"Mom." Jackie gave her mother her best imitation-Batman glare. "Why is there a mask in your stuff?"

"It's an old Halloween costume?" her mom suggested hopefully.

"Why wasn't it in the box in the garage with all the rest of them, then?"

"It's…oh, dear." Violet sighed and lowered herself to the floor next to the flattened masking-taped box. "It's not what you're thinking. It really isn't," she said defensively as Jackie raised an eyebrow. "I never wore it. It was such a long time ago. A group of us were looking to do some community service for a project for Girl Scouts. Someone came up with the idea of writing letters to people who would never get out of prison. Most of the girls picked regular people – murderers, thieves. A few of us chose supervillains." She chuckled, slightly embarrassed. "I have to admit that I chose mine because I didn't think he'd write me back. But he did. It turned out that he was in the prison's medical wing with two broken legs when my letter arrived. He wrote me back the next day, and I had to keep going. But then the project was over, and I couldn't just _stop_. Paul was so lonely, and I was…well, I hadn't met your father yet, and…" Violet cleared her throat. "Well, one thing led to another, and eventually he broke out of prison and showed up at my door, in full costume, in the middle of the day." Her eyes misted over. "He was actually quite handsome under the mask. He stood there on the porch, holding out his tentacle…"

"Tentacle?"

"Oh, yes. Didn't I mention? He was the Octagonist. Back then, villains hardly got any notice at all unless they went overboard with their themes, so he had a fully-functional octopus suit. I never did find out how he made the other four tentacles move. Anyway, he stood there, tentacle held out to me, and said, 'Come with me. I can't live without you.'" She sighed, toying with the mask in her lap. "I told him no. I told him that I was only sixteen, that I couldn't possibly leave home before I'd even graduated high school. He gave me the mask and said he'd be back for me in two years." Violet smoothed a wrinkle from the mask. "He stopped writing me shortly after that. I thought that he'd just gone into hiding, but…he'd been killed."

Jackie stared at her mother, open-mouthed. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I didn't want you to know!"

"Why?"

"Well, it's not exactly something you tell your daughter while she's growing up. And then you moved to Gotham, and supervillains do love to hold grudges. I didn't dare tell you in case word got out about who you were, or who I was. I wasn't sure if anyone even remembered Paul, but if they did, they might have used you as a way to get to me for some sort of secondhand revenge against Paul. Stranger things have happened," she said defensively, "and I just wanted to keep you safe."

"Too bad it didn't work," Jackie muttered, frisbeeing a stray folder into a box. "Does Dad know?"

"I told him the night before we were married. I thought he should know, in case he wanted to stop the wedding. But he said no, it didn't matter, we could get through whatever happened because he loved me." Violet carefully straightened a skewed sequin next to the left eyehole of her mask. "Do you love Eddie?"

Jackie recoiled. "What?"

"You showed up without him, and you look like you've been crying. You said it's complicated, which could mean just about anything. But if he left you, I think you'd come out and say it. So. Do you love him?" her mother said, in that patient, I-can-repeat-this-all-day-until-you-answer tone.

"I…well, yes, I mean, sort of. It's…I love Eddie," Jackie said, flopping back against the side of the bed. "But I don't know if I love the Riddler."

Her mother nodded. "Do you think he'd ever give up being the Riddler to just be plain Eddie?"

Jackie shook her head. "No." Rivers might run backward and eagles might start opening bank accounts, but Edward Nygma would never give up the thrill of being Batman's intellectual nemesis.

"Good."

Jackie's head jerked upright in shock. "Good?"

"Good. You don't expect that you can change him. A lot of relationships are ruined because someone thinks that they can change someone else."

Jackie rubbed her eyes. "Mom, we had all that time at Thanksgiving when you could have told me all of this. Why didn't you want me to know about Paul?"

"Honestly? Because you'd ask me for my advice, and I don't have any for you." Violet began rolling up the mask into a neat cylinder. "Do I want my daughter to spend her time in and out of Arkham Asylum, on the run from Batman? Of course I don't. But your Eddie's a nice man, when he's not being the Riddler. I saw how you two looked at each other. I want you to be happy, sweetie. I could wish that things were different, but wishing never helped anything." She tugged a final wrinkle out of the mask and tucked it into the top of a different box. "You'll fix it or you won't. Whichever you choose, I'll be here for you."

Jackie scooted over and gave Violet a hug. "Thanks, Mom."

* * *

Eddie paced back and forth in his lair, pausing every so often to level a glare at his uncooperative half-built deathtrap. This would have been so much easier with someone to fetch him his tools and hold things in place while he soldered them together. He supposed that he could have called up a spare henchman-for-hire, but dealing with them directly was _so_ tedious. What he needed was his henchgirl! It had been a whole week - when was Jackie going to come back to Gotham, anyway?

He scowled at the pile of metal. To hell with it. He was in no mood to deal with any of it tonight. He'd go to the Iceberg and drink off some of this irritation. He was half-shrugged into his coat before he realized that showing up alone to the Iceberg would invite all sorts of uncomfortable questions – where was Jackie? When would she be back? And nothing was as maddening as a question that he couldn't answer, particularly _these_ questions.

Well, fine. He wouldn't go out. He'd just stay here and have a relaxing drink or twelve by himself, because sitting home alone with a freshly-emptied bottle of scotch was a perfect shining sign that everything was going just _great_ for you. He stripped off his coat and flung it across the back of a chair. Then, with the typical anger-management skills of the above-average supervillain, he turned his attention to the heap of misbehaving metal parked on the floor.

 _Whong-ong-ong-ong-ong!_

And now he'd hurt his foot. He threw a handy wrench at the deathtrap, taking a masochistic kind of delight at watching it rip his half-hearted wiring right out of the solder, and flounced onto the couch like an aggrieved Southern belle. At least the scotch was within arm's reach, although a clean glass wasn't. Well, no one would care if he just drank it straight out of the bottle. And maybe a bit more. And one more for good measure.

Everywhere he looked, he saw something that made him more annoyed. There was no food in the fridge, a tower of dishes in the sink, a pile of laundry – well, _piles_ of laundry – all over the living room, and he was a _supervillain_ , dammit, he was meant for better things than petty matters like cleaning and cooking and keeping himself alive in ways that didn't involve puzzle-traps and bullets!

Puzzle traps. Yeah. Maybe he should pull a heist by himself. Right now!

No, that wasn't it. Even if he was in any condition to put together a half-decent riddle, how likely was it that Batman would take the time to solve it when he was _so busy_ with everyone else – like if the _Joker_ sent out a threat you better believe Bat-brain would drop everything and run, but everything else seemed to be higher priority than Eddie unless he wrote a full-length novel in the sky or hand-delivered a personal threat to Commissioner Gordon – and how often could you really threaten the same guy, anyway? Boring.

Eddie stared at the continually lowering level of scotch in his bottle, simmering with resentment. It wasn't any fun to be brilliant when there was no one around to be brilliant at – not that Jackie was a fawning sycophant like so many of the others had been, but she was smart _too_ and he knew, he just _knew_ that they could put together something really amazing, something _incredible_ , something that would make all of Gotham re…re… re something. Respect him! Yeah, that was it. If she'd just come back…well, maybe he'd just have to _make_ her come back. No. Yeah. Maybe.

This scotch was _great_. Drinking it was a great idea. Maybe a little more. Yeah. Great.

 _Zzzzzzzzzzz_ ….

( _to be continued_ )

 _Author's Note: Life is busy, and recently it was busy in a very specific multiple-foster-kids-with-bedbugs kind of way, coinciding perfectly with a holy-shit-I-got-the-lead-role-in-a-musical way and a what-is-this-sleep-you-speak-of way. And then I wrote a play and hosted more foster kids and bought a new house and had a baby and adopted a kid and when I say that the past few years have been crazy, we're talking all-out Arkham levels of crazy, complete with screams and errant bodily fluids. But everything is settled now, or at least as settled as it ever gets around here, and I will finish all of my half-finished stuff or die trying._

 _Eddie's crossword is the New York Times crossword from October 14, 2004. The Octagonist doesn't exist anywhere outside of my head._


End file.
